Patch 7.2 - Death Knight Class Mounts
Today we are taking a look at the Death Knight class mount and the quest to obtain it!

Legendary System Clarification - Based on Q&A

Originally Posted by Blizzard
(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

1) How does the above work in regards to Non-spec-based Legendaries (like Shard of Exodaar for mages, who works for all 3 specs. Does it account for ALL specs, or just the one that it was dropped on?
If a Legendary can drop for your spec, it counts. An easy way to check this is to open the Adventure Guide ingame (Shift-J by default) and click the "Loot" tab without having a dungeon or raid selected. That'll show you which Legendaries are counted for your spec.

2) Very similar to the above, how do items like Prydaz/Sephuz/Kil'jaeden DPS/etc work under this system? Does it count for the spec it dropped on, or for all specs?
Same as above.

3) The PTR has had "Unidentified Legendary" items in its database for a while, and it's been speculated that these were a 'failsafe' for people accidentally getting a legendary in the 'wrong spec' and blowing their accrued Bad Luck Protection -- are these unidentified items still going live, are they going to be scrapped in light of the spec-based droprate/BLP ? If they are going live, is it intended behavior that people could play offspecs with low number of legendaries, or none, get these items quickly (since the first 2 legendaries drop faster), and then swap to their 'main spec' as a way to get a few more legendaries 'quickly' (in comparison to the norm) ?
These were part of an experimental concept that we've since decided not to go ahead with, at least for now. The idea wasn't exactly what you're speculating, but our concerns were similar.

4) How does BLP 'acquisition' work under this new spec-based system? Do I 'build up' BLP for all specs as I play, or only for the one currently set as my Loot Specialization? If it builds for all of them, this has possible unintended consequences, where once I get an item in 1 spec, I know I should swap to the others and get items 'relatively fast' since the BLP is built up a fair bit (assuming it wasn't RNGesus giving you an item very very early on)
This one I'm actually not certain on the answer, but I'll look into it.

So basically if you have utility legendaries you are even more screwed than before because you already have that many legendaries for every spec.
I can see where you're coming from, but I'd make the argument that if you have cross-spec Legendaries and play multiple specs, you're already at an advantage in that they're functional for your other specs. I have the Thunder Focus Tea pants and Soothing Mist shoulders on my Mistweaver; neither of them do anything at all when I play Brewmaster.

I feel like this comes back to a lot of the utility legendarys are still just "bad" some like Prydaz and Sephuz are better. But there are other's like Acherus Drapes and Uther's Guard that remain disappointing as ever to receive. I leveled a DK as a fun alt, got Acherus Drapes as its first legendary, i am tempted to just delete the character and try again if I had gotten prydaz i wouldn't have felt this way as it has far more value. Or i have been considering leveling my warrior and just hoping for better luck. You mentioned this in the QA but please take a close look at all the legendarys (including healer ones). To make sure there aren't so many egregious outliers, i should emphasize this is a much larger problem for healers right now than DPS.
Yep, this is the important point to remember: if a legendary just sucks, then that's the problem we need to fix. Similarly, if your spec sucks without a particular legendary, then that legendary also needs to be fixed to not be so impactful.

Regarding Prydaz, specifically: It's maybe not the most exciting legendary right now, but it's certainly strong. The stats make it a solid, reliable throughput upgrade, and in the immortal words of Sebudai: "It's pretty easy to figure out how much DPS you're doing as a corpse on the ground."

As for Sephuz: it has a weird, but temporary, issue. When you only have one or two legendaries, it sucks that it does nothing on the fights where you can't proc it. No argument there. Eventually, though, you'll have a third legendary, and it opens up for some interesting gameplay, where you swap it on for fights with a lot of dispels, interrupts, or controllable targets, and swap it out for the ones that don't. It's not always useful, but it's really good when it is. That's not a bad thing.

Those seem to be the two that most commonly come up as "bad," but we'll keep discussing the other options as well. I know there's a few tweaks planned to some that haven't yet hit the PTR.

Overall, though, I just wanted to drive home the point that if you're upset at how long it might take you to get your next Legendary because the ones you have are bad, we want to fix that by making the ones you have better.

We.Want.A.Way.To.Target.Spec.Specific.Slot.Specific. BEST IN SLOT.
A) I think your spacebar is broken.

B) You'll be able to do exactly that through the Relinquished gear tokens in Patch 7.2.

Wait, was this a confirmation that we can actually target slots?
Correct. The current plan is that if you purchase a Relinquished token for, say, shoulders, and it gives you a legendary, it gives you legendary shoulders.

Massive wall of caveats here just because I don't want to over-promise:

This is PTR. Anything can change at any moment. Many things already have.

We don't have a solid handle yet on how long it will take to earn these things, or what the chance of them becoming a legendary will be. We need to be confident that the Broken Shore content itself is stabilized before we can start figuring out things like how quickly you earn Nethershards or how much these tokens cost.

Their primary purpose is still as catch-up gear, similar to what was available on the Timeless Isle or Hellfire Peninsula. We don't consider this a "silver bullet" solve to all legendary-related issues, and aren't trying to make it be one. Still, if you just desperately want that one specific legendary, this might be an option worth considering.

Blue Posts

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

Healer Changes in Patch 7.2
After continued discussion, as well as player feedback, we've decided not to go ahead with these changes in Patch 7.2. That includes the Healer change I mentioned earlier, as well as the rest of the changes that the OP mentioned.

We recognize that there's a problem with World PvP right now, and we do want to find ways to make some improvements there, but these changes would have been far too disruptive to balance in instanced PvP. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

World Quest and Emissary Cache Reward Item Level
The rewards from the Emissary Cache and World Quests will scale higher in Patch 7.2. However, players who regularly participate in more organised content, such as raiding or higher level Mythic Keystone dungeons, are still likely to reach a point where Emissary Cache/World Quest rewards are no longer compelling. It's okay to outgrow some content as your character grows stronger. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Monk (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator / Artifact Calculator / PvP Talent Calculator)Mistweaver TalentsHello Blizz, listen I really like chi wave, but not at the expense of mistwalk. I enjoy the talent it is good in PVP and is good in PVE (certain circumstances) There are other talents that are not ever used at least by me like (rushing Jade wind, Rising thunder, spirit of the crane) there are several PVP talents that are not used that often either that could be removed (refreshing breeze, healing sphere, way of the crane, fast feet.) Mistwalk is an awesome part of the new monk playstyle don't take that away
This was a primarily PvP-focused change. It wasn't getting much use in PvE (and when it was, that was almost always the wrong choice), and it was giving Mistweavers far too much mobility in PvP, especially in RBGs where it was highly problematic.

We're obviously aware that this change has balance implications, and are prepared to make any additional changes necessary for Mistweaver PvP performance. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Live Developer Q&A Answers (23/02/2017)

Originally Posted by Blizzard
(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Now that the recent Live Dev Q&A with Ion Hazzikostas has concluded, we have compiled a few brief summaries of his answers to some of the main questions that were asked.

Q: Are there any plans to make the Balance of Power skins account wide in the future? If not, can we expect to see further alt catch-up mechanisms?
A: It’s intended to be a per-character reward, so we currently do not plan to make Balance of Power account-wide. That said, we’ve recent increased the droprate of Corrupted Essences significantly in Emerald Nightmare, to the point where it no longer takes several months to finish that step, and instead can be completed in just a few weeks. Droprates in Nighthold are already very high, so alts should be able to catch up very quickly. As the expansion continues, we’ll continue to keep an eye on it and make additional changes, should they become necessary.

Q: What's the reason behind making second trait on relics another layer of RNG?
A: It actually opens up a lot of options for relics to be valuable, compared to the alternative of designating two traits for each relic. If the traits were pre-selected, you’d likely only have one or two relic drops you really wanted, and others would be considered sub-optimal. By randomly assigning the second trait, every relic drop has a chance to have your favorite trait. Note that the second trait will always be throughput-oriented (e.g. it will increase your DPS, healing, or survivability depending on your role), and relics cannot have the same trait twice.

Q: Any plans for reducing the large barrier to spec-swapping presented by Legendaries?
A: Currently, in Patch 7.1.5, your chance to receive a Legendary is based on the total number of Legendaries you’ve already gotten. In Patch 7.2, we’re changing that algorithm to only count Legendaries with bonuses that apply to your spec. So, if you’re a Fire Mage with the Pyroblast bracers and Scorch belt, you’ll have a significantly higher chance to receive a Legendary when your loot specialization is set to Frost than you do currently.

Q: Any plans on buffing underperforming legendaries? Enhancement bracers for example do literally nothing right now.
A: Yes. We’ve already made a couple of changes to Legendary balance in the 7.2 PTR, and more are coming. We feel that one of the major frustrations players often mention regarding the Legendary system – that they haven’t gotten the “right” Legendary and wish theirs were better – is largely due to imbalance in Legendary items. We’re continuing to adjust Legendaries by buffing underpowered ones (and nerfing overpowered ones) in Patch 7.2, as well as future updates.

Q: Are there plans to extend the Artifact Knowledge catch-up in 7.2 to follow the same trend as the compendiums added in 7.1.5, or is that something for a later date?
A: Yes, there will be new compendiums in Patch 7.2. The maximum will allow players who have earned Artifact Knowledge level 40 to immediately grant Artifact Knowledge level 35 to alternate characters.

World Boss Testing - February 23

Originally Posted by Blizzard
(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

To help test the new Broken Shore world bosses, we've temporarily set the PTR to rotate to a new world boss every 30 minutes. There are three bosses in total. If you'd like to check them out and provide feedback (or even just help us stress test the Broken Shore), please do!

HeroStorm Episode #22 - The Last Laugh
Another episode of HeroStorm has been released.

bloody bullshit that non spec specific legendaries count towards your spec... i have gotten 3 fckn (apologies for swearing) non class specific legendaries on my dk, the neck (stat stick now, not too bad), the zephusz ring and the speed boots (who in their right mind wants speed boots???). on top of that i have the tanking ring (which im very very happy about).
but this all now means i have 4 legendaries counting towards my tanking spec. bye getting any of the other tanking legendaries (or any other specs in this matter).

boots are worthless, they are gathering dust in my bank
ring is good for dps spec as i bind it with my pet stun but overall not great since there arent too much interrupts to be done on boss fights (especially if you have 19 other players wanting to interrupt too)
neck is good for stat stick but that is about it. shield bursts immediately when tanking because its so low and crit mastery arent all too good for tanking spec.

all in all 3 shitty legendaries and one good one, but still 4 counting towards my bloody spec fk sake.

blizz ive said it many times and will say it many times again... fix yo shit

This says what I expect this system to be. For the completely desperate person because your odds will be garbage and/or will take crazy farming to get each shot. Still, if its effected by the badluck protection boost that 1st and 2nd legendaries get you may save a ton of time just recreating your class and targeting the good 2 you want since it should be really easy. You will ofc have to avoid raiding until you get the ones you want since you could accidently get bad ones and ruin your targeting strategy.

Utility legendaries and dps legendaries still need to be counted separately from each other for purposes of increased drop rate on first 2.

We should ask for a balance around Skitish. This affix is just boring. For me, this week, it's an "afk" week.
I don't see why i should pay 12€ for a unplayable game.

(i tried many MM+12 to 15, with different tank (classe&player) with different combinaision of mate (Hunter was the best btw) but, no way. Where i should go for 1 to 1.2mio dps average, i'm sitting at 750k because i have to run all the time.
Where is the point? -_-

We should ask for a balance around Skitish. This affix is just boring. For me, this week, it's an "afk" week.
I don't see why i should pay 12€ for a unplayable game.

(i tried many MM+12 to 15, with different tank (classe&player) with different combinaision of mate (Hunter was the best btw) but, no way. Where i should go for 1 to 1.2mio dps average, i'm sitting at 750k because i have to run all the time.
Where is the point? -_-

admitted skitttish is hellish, im easily tanking a 15+ with 1 or 2 chests... granted i need to taunt on cd but if you get reliable people who know what to do when they suddenly get aggro its not THAT hard...

What is the point of changing their legendary drop algorithm to only count spec specific legendaries, if you already own 2 or more cross spec ones. As Shaman with the legs and let's say Sephuz, I still don't have higher chances to get an actually useful legendary for my off specs.

This is another not fully thought out change.

- - - Updated - - -

Originally Posted by Scyn

We should ask for a balance around Skitish. This affix is just boring. For me, this week, it's an "afk" week.
I don't see why i should pay 12€ for a unplayable game.

(i tried many MM+12 to 15, with different tank (classe&player) with different combinaision of mate (Hunter was the best btw) but, no way. Where i should go for 1 to 1.2mio dps average, i'm sitting at 750k because i have to run all the time.
Where is the point? -_-

Mythic+ and especially some affixes are a team effort. Welcome to online games. And also, Skittish will be nerfed in 7.2, afaik.

- - - Updated - - -

Originally Posted by Holywraths

Grind?!?! what grind is there for AK, you log in go to your class hall click a single button then leave it to do it's own thing. If this is what you call a grind than oh boi you must like AP.

So, have fun with your 200k AP/day then? This is worth 3 WQs, or a mythic+7-9 key. Nothing which will bring you any closer to traits which cost millions of AP.

Originally Posted by Socialhealer

he wants to play ele shaman but it's always fucked up, so it's a state of permanently insulted, i understand that feeling as an ele shaman.

bloody bullshit that non spec specific legendaries count towards your spec... i have gotten 3 fckn (apologies for swearing) non class specific legendaries on my dk, the neck (stat stick now, not too bad), the zephusz ring and the speed boots (who in their right mind wants speed boots???). on top of that i have the tanking ring (which im very very happy about).
but this all now means i have 4 legendaries counting towards my tanking spec. bye getting any of the other tanking legendaries (or any other specs in this matter).

This matters only if you have less than 2 legendaries on a given spec. Once you have your first 2, the speed at which you get your 3rd, your 4th, 5th and so on is the same (on average, random is random you know). It will not take longer to get your 5th tanking legendary than it had for your 4th (before, it would take twice longer, but that's no longer the case).

However, the 3 "spec-less" legendaries will make getting your first DPS specs legendaries (if you haven't any) slower. As fast as getting your 5th tanking legendary.

This matters only if you have less than 2 legendaries on a given spec. Once you have your first 2, the speed at which you get your 3rd, your 4th, 5th and so on is the same (on average, random is random you know). It will not take longer to get your 5th tanking legendary than it had for your 4th (before, it would take twice longer, but that's no longer the case).

However, the 3 "spec-less" legendaries will make getting your first DPS specs legendaries (if you haven't any) slower. As fast as getting your 5th tanking legendary.

There are more than 3 cross spec legendaries. As Shaman you've up to 6.

Originally Posted by Socialhealer

he wants to play ele shaman but it's always fucked up, so it's a state of permanently insulted, i understand that feeling as an ele shaman.

I'm becoming more and more convinced that a very large part of the WoW playerbase doesn't actually enjoy MMOs.

What you consider being an MMO is not necessary the definition of this genre. They continue to add more and more layers of RNG which are only possible in games like Diablo, where loot drops are infinite. This simply doesn't belong into an MMO and is considered as stretching of content. This issues were known since Legion Alpha and they were simply ignored.

Originally Posted by Socialhealer

he wants to play ele shaman but it's always fucked up, so it's a state of permanently insulted, i understand that feeling as an ele shaman.